'It can happen to anybody': Inside ICE's Attempted Deporatition of Cincinnati Imam Ayman Soliman

“I didn’t come to America seeking a better life. I was escaping death,” Imam Ayman Soliman said in a viral video hours before his incarceration.

On July 9, Ayman Soliman, a chaplain at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, was illegally arrested by ICE after having spent over a decade as an authorized asylum seeker. Soliman, whose asylum status and work permit was suddenly revoked in June, wasn’t told why he was arrested before being locked away in a Butler County, Ohio jail cell.

This arrest shocked community members, as Soliman was widely regarded as not only a man who strictly abides by the law, but also as someone who has dedicated his life to serving the marginalized. It prompted immediate outcry from colleagues at the children’s hospital, with more than 300 people demanding justice. Fortunately, a temporary restraining order was issued, preventing his deportation until at least July 23, the date of his bond hearing.

Deportation is a matter of life or death for Soliman. He was born in a small desert village in northern Egypt, spending 44 years earning degrees in Islamic Studies before working over a decade in the country as an Imam. Since the year 2000, he worked as a freelance journalist, covering government oppression of protesters during uprisings like the Arab Spring. On at least four separate occasions, he was thrown in jail for his work, beaten and tortured as punishment. 

Fearing for his life, in 2014 he arrived in the US under a B-2 visa after multiple colleagues wrote letters to immigration authorities in support of his entry. The year after, he was granted asylum.

Unfortunately, his oppression didn’t stop there.

Soliman was first targeted in 2021, when he moved to Oregon to work as a chaplain for prisoners. After initially getting offered the position, the FBI flagged him without an explanation of what he was being flagged for. He tried to resolve it by offering his fingerprints, but the flag prevented him from doing anything but remote work.

He got in touch with The Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America (CLCMA) looking for legal help to learn why this was happening. After some back and forth, he received a final determination from the Department of Homeland Security that suggested he was in the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database. Around the same time, he settled in as a chaplain at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

In the midst of multiple lawsuits and after many attempted dismissals from the federal government, an asylum officer terminated his asylum status in late 2024, which his lawyers believe is in retaliation for fighting back.

“Our department became involved in 2023 when the government had initially tried to reject his application to adjust data. At that time they were saying that he did not respond to a request for additional evidence, which he had not received. Neither did his attorney at the time,” said Franki Daniel, one of Soliman’s attorneys at the Muslim Legal Fund of America, in an interview with Free Radical.

“So we became involved when we filed a form 290B, which is an appeal form that says, ‘Hey, you never sent it. He didn't get it. His attorney at that time didn't receive it. You need to reopen the case,’ which they did…. He then received a notice of intent to revoke his asylum. So that was the initial precursor — they were considering revoking his asylum,” Daniel recounted.

“There was an interview in February of this year regarding that. Seemingly he had addressed everything, and was hopeful that they would not revoke it.”

Yet in June, his asylum status was terminated. After going to the local ICE office the following month for a routine check-in with DHS, Soliman was detained. He was held at Butler County Jail, which is traditionally reserved for detainees with criminal charges, not civil charges. In one interview with Cincinnati Magazine, he described being punished with below-freezing temperatures and minimal clothing, kept alone for 19 hours a day without any sunlight.

“They began actively trying to deport him to a country where he was tortured and nearly killed.... He is really terrified that he's going to be sent back to Egypt. It's a country where the people in power are anti-democratic. They have already tortured him for his role in broadcasting the pro-democracy movement in 2014 and 2013,” said Lynn Tramonte, director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, an immigrant advocacy group that helped raise awareness about Soliman’s case.

“This government continues to torture and kill journalists every year. It's one of the most deadly countries for journalists. So it's not like his fears are unfounded.”

In the asylum termination, a bizarre allegation was leveled against Soliman: that he was affiliated with a tier 3 terrorist organization, Daniel said. The tier refers to an organization that isn’t officially designated as a terrorist group by the Department of State but rather is determined on a case-by-case basis in immigration applications, according to the International Refugee Assistance Project. 

Soliman’s lawyers sought more information, and while it wasn’t found within the termination notice, the raw termination itself outlined shocking allegations. 

“Within the actual termination itself, they point to supposed links between an organization that he was a board member of in Egypt called Al-Jameya al Shareya, an organization that allegedly provided transportation to some woman who allegedly went to vote for a member of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Daniel said.

“There is no link,” she added.

Al-Jameya al Shareya is a nongovernmental organization in Egypt that provides medical and social services to impoverished people. The Egyptian government has never designated it a terrorist group, and there is no evidence it has ever engaged in or cooperated with such activities. The government instead relied on allegedly out-of-context quotes from academic writings to paint the organization as having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The government additionally knew about his former board membership when asylum was granted in 2014.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a multinational organization founded in Egypt dedicated to pushing a hard conservative interpretation of Islam into law in the various countries it operates. While it once engaged in political violence, it has been committed to non-violence since the 1970s, with no evidence that it reversed this policy. The Trump administration has consistently tried to designate the organization as a terrorist group throughout its two terms, in spite of prior administrations finding no evidence in favor of the designation.

The allegations came as a shock to Soliman’s colleagues, who regard him as a pillar of the Cincinnati community. Dr. Judy Ragsdale, a former colleague of Soliman’s at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital who also hired him, had nothing but positive things to say.

“His gifts as a chaplain are very strong. He's both an imam and a Muslim scholar, so he was able to help Muslim families understand what was possible Islamically in the care of their children,” Ragsdale wrote in an email to Free Radical. “Ayman helped lead a worship service honoring trans children who died. His compassion extended beyond those he was charged with caring for in his job. Ayman's ability to speak Arabic and to offer not just care but the guidance they expected from an imam was an enormous gift for patients as well as for their families.”

Ragsdale told numerous stories Soliman had previously shared about his work in hospitals, with sensitive patient information redacted. One story focused on a mother whose son ended up in a vegetative state following a car accident. After spending long weeks consulting with her on what to do, he was able to help console her as she made the difficult decision to let her child pass away.

“I think this is a story of how Islam helped make a decision,” Soliman said in a transcribed phone interview Ragsdale shared. “She was confused, but Islam never let her down. Islam had the ruling that helped her make the decision. She said, ‘I hate to keep him alive and in pain but at the same time I don’t want to make a decision that will make God displeased,’ and I was able to say to her, ‘Islam says you can let him go, you don’t have to suffer, you don’t have to struggle with him being in pain; at the same time, you are not displeasing your God. What you think is good for your son is also good for your faith.’”

His reputation led to immense public protest and actions from patients, colleagues, and community members that attracted national headlines. Protesters gathered outside of ICE offices, on bridges, and outside mosques, rallying to raise awareness of his case and get support. Over a dozen were arrested, and many more were brutalized by police, even while doing peaceful actions. Thousands signed petitions, many called their legislators to raise awareness, and hundreds of interfaith leaders called on the government to stop this Islamophobic attack that would effectively sentence him to death.

Local politicians are working to raise awareness and encourage people to take action in their localities. Ohio State Representative Karen Brownlee made a strong note in a phone interview with Free Radical for people to get immigrants to fill out ICE Form 60-001 if detained, so their information is disclosed to the public.

“There's a waiver form that Mr. Soliman filled out prior to his visit at the Homeland Security office that allowed for them to share information with an outside party. [It’s important to] let community members know that if you are concerned for yourself or for somebody else who might be detained or deported, that you get this form filled out so that people outside can track where you are and what's happening with your case, rather than you being completely shut out due to confidentiality measures,” Brownlee said.

“Unfortunately, that's where we're at right now.”

Thanks to this information being public, an immense amount of awareness was able to be raised, which has had a humongous impact on helping Soliman.

“Everybody is standing up for this guy. He's got hundreds of rabbis, hundreds of people from the Christian faith, hundreds of imams writing letters for him. He's got parents of kids whose children died on MSNBC saying this man is someone that I trusted with my children's life with,” said Tramonte of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. “If this can happen to any Muslim, it can happen to anybody.”

After his lawyers fought for months on end, and the public continued to put pressure on immigration officials, Soliman was finally released from jail on September 9.

"We're so excited to see Ayman at home, where he belongs," Tramonte said in an email statement. "Ayman has always been there for everyone else. Caring for others is his life's mission. So when Ayman needed his community, they showed up for him at his hour of need.”

“Hundreds of Ohioans mobilized, advocated, organized, donated, and prayed, every single day. His legal team worked around the clock and left no stone unturned. This is the type of community I know we are, and the type of community I know we can continue to be. Because whether you were born in Selina or Senegal, Euclid or Egypt, Ohio is home. There's a place for you here." 

His detention has been widely viewed as an undeniable form of Islamophobia, given his spotless criminal record and beloved status in the community.

“This administration has terminated asylum for people who have had no interaction with law enforcement. Since their asylum has been granted for Mr. Soliman, he hasn't had any charges or any type of criminal issues since being granted asylum here. And yet his asylum was terminated,” said Daniel of the Muslim Legal Fund of America.

“That is a shift in the priorities that they're looking for. You've heard about the mass deportations that they're doing. This administration has stated that it has a goal of removing a certain number of immigrants. That is a shift, I would say. And so is the government trying to use Mr. Soliman as a signal to the public? I can't say for sure if they're making an example of him, but it sure looks like it, right?”

Soliman’s story, however, is still not over. He’s currently raising money to cover his legal costs, and has been going to public events around Ohio to speak about his experiences and try to raise awareness for the human rights abuses.

Soliman made his message to the public clear in his interview with Cincinnati Magazine: “I will focus on two things: my well-being and to get over this traumatic experience, and also to advocate for these people. My message is that noise actually works. Advocacy does work, plus the collective effort is a very, very important thing to do.”

Thank you to Ryan Fae (@ryan.staticnoi.se) for editing this article.